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U.S. District Judge John Roll, who was one of six people killed Saturday in the Tucson shooting that critically wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), has long been at the center of the state's political battles over immigration—and in the crosshairs of immigration foes.

Roll’s death has not been linked to the Barnett lawsuit, and the judge appears not to have been a target in Saturday’s massacre. According to television reports, Roll happened to live a couple of blocks away from the Tucson supermarket where Giffords was holding a meet-and-greet with voters and decided to drop by to say hello.

But the Barnett case and its repercussions for Roll and his family highlight the increasing dangers faced by public officials as well as immigrants in Arizona’s vitriolic and volatile political climate.

Outrage Over Civil Rights Lawsuit

In the 2009 case, immigrants accused Barnett of violating their civil rights and falsely imprisoning them when he caught them trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border near Douglas, Ariz., in March 2004.

According to lawyers with the Mexican Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), which represented the immigrants, Barnett threatened to turn his dog loose on the five women and 11 men and held them at gunpoint, saying he would shoot anyone who tried to escape.

Conservatives were livid, and radio talk shows stoked the controversy over Roll’s ruling. In one afternoon, Roll logged more than 200 phone calls, the Arizona Republic reported at the time. Callers threatened the judge and his family and posted personal information about Roll online.

“They said, 'We should kill him. He should be dead,' " U.S. Marshal David Gonzales said.

Roll and his wife were given 24-hour protection for about a month, with U.S. marshals guarding his home, screening his mail and escorting him to court, to the gym and even to Mass.

"It was unnerving and invasive. . . . By its nature it has to be," Roll told the Republic, adding that his family had been encouraged to live their lives as normally as possible. Eventually, Roll said, four men were identified as the main threat makers.

The Marshals Service reportedly recommended that he not press charges, and Roll took their advice, he said.

10-Year Campaign to Stop Illegal Crossings

Barnett and his family, who had waged a 10-year campaign to stop illegal immigrants from using their 22,000-acre Cross Rail Ranch on the U.S.-Mexican border as their crossing point, were hailed as heroes by anti-immigrant groups and conservative news organizations.

According to the conservative-leaning Washington Times, Barnett began rounding up illegal immigrants and turning them over to the U.S. Border Patrol in 1998. He complained that illegal immigrants were destroying his property, killing his calves and even breaking into his home.

Barnett told the Times that some trails on his ranch used by illegal crossers were littered with trash 10 inches deep, including human waste, toilet paper, soiled diapers, cigarette packs, clothes, backpacks, and —he alleged—aluminum foil that he claimed was used by immigrant smugglers to pack drugs.

According to the Times, Barnett spent $30,000 on electronic sensors for the ranch and searched for immigrants “in a pickup truck, dressed in a green shirt and camouflage hat, with his handgun and rifle, high-powered binoculars and a walkie-talkie.”

Barnett claimed to have captured some 12,000 illegal immigrants over the years.

In its lawsuit, MALDEF alleged that Barnett approached the group of 16 immigrants—who hailed mainly from Michoacan, Mexico—as they crossed his property, brandishing a gun and threatening them in English and Spanish. At one point, the lawsuit alleged, Barnett's dog growled at several of the women and he yelled at them in Spanish, "My dog is hungry and he's hungry for buttocks."

Also named in the suit were Barnett's wife, his brother Donald, and Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever.

It was not the first time Barnett’s actions resulted in a lawsuit. In 2006, in a case brought by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a jury ordered Barnett to pay $98,750 to a family of Mexican-Americans—including two small girls—whom he terrorized after he found them hunting on his ranch. That incident also occurred in 2004.

In the End, Just $77,000

In the end, however, the rancher largely prevailed against MALDEF. The cases against Barnett’s wife and brother were thrown out and the immigrants were awarded a total of just $77,000.

Comments

I don't blame the farmer. It's his land, and was certainly a point of entry for ILLEGAL immigrants. I'm sick of it. We have them sucking up our money, taking our jobs, and more. Does anyone get the word "ILLEGAL?"

Anonymous

Posted Jan 24 2011

Not until all realize, and get the picture in our minds of the wording of the first Article (B. of Rights)... "all legislative power herein GRANTED.." Plainly intended to show the impossibility of your neighbor "granting" to a so called law-maker (just another neighbor) a power or authority over you that your neighbor does not have over you to begin with! Your neighbor cannot GRANT to anyone, something he does not have in the first place. In point is a drivers license. How could one neighbor grant to another the authority to force you to get a drivers license. He cannot, because he does not have that authority over you in the first place, does he? So he could not then grant or give what he does not have to another, to control you. This is the FOUNDATION of all the corruptness, all around us, AND CONTROLLING US. Did that judge believe in licensing all of us?

Anonymous

Posted Feb 14 2011

i hope you didn't get paid to write this bullcrap

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